Kittanning Care Center

One of the reasons this ended up being a quality nursing home is that it received an impressive inspection rating. In fact, inspections turned out to be its best category grade. In that category, we awarded it an A+. Inspection scores are based on many pieces of information located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Facilities that score well in this category have very few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these nursing homes generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. Although this nursing home had some deficiencies on its government inspection report, none were serious based on CMS' scale. The fact that the deficiencies were relatively minor made us feel better about this inspection report.

This nursing home performed well in the category of nursing. In fact, we awarded it an B- for that category, which is one of our best grades. Our nursing grade is mostly based on a facility's nurse staffing. This nursing home averages just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low figure. Finally, nursing scores also consider quality-based measures, such as avoiding major falls. Despite not having the most impressive total nursing hours per resident, this nursing home actually performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is typically a reliable indicator that a facility has quality controls in place. Some falls could be avoided if a facility supplies enough nurses to assist its residents.

The next best area we gave this nursing home in any category came in the category of long-term care, where we gave it a grade of B-. In forming these long-term care ratings, we assess the nursing home's personal care services. In addition to considering the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients. This nursing home also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

Switching gears to our next category, this nursing home was awarded a C in short-term care, which we consider to be a respectable rating. Our short-term care grades are based in part on a nursing home's quantity of skilled skilled healthcare professionals. This means a vast spectrum of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, in addition to other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final item we considered in this area is the percentage of patients that ultimately returned home from the nursing home. We found that just 4.1 percent of this facility's residents returned home.